By Summer Stevens 1 Show up. Showing up says to your pastor, “I believe in what God is doing here at our church.” Prioritize Sunday attendance as a family. There are dozens of competing activities for Sunday morning—children’s sports, camping, sleeping in, visiting family—but it says a lot to your family and your pastor when

By Bud Brown Is there a distinctively Free Grace way to motivate Christians to talk about Jesus and eternal life with those who don’t believe? Many are urging pastors to exhort church members to evangelistic effort. A wealth of books, blogs, electronic resources, videos, and ministries have been devoted to creating evangelistic momentum in churches.

By Marcia Hornok A 46-year-old believer, whose husband died after a debilitating illness, felt like she could not go on. She said, “I don’t know if it was self-pity, if I was seeking negative attention, or if grief made me feel like I would self-destruct. My gut-wrenching sadness at times seemed unpreventable and untreatable. Often

By James Morison (1816-1893) Some of our older theologians—inclusive of many of the “Marrow-men”—spoke much of the appropriating act of faith. It was this act which they supposed to be saving. “In the direct act of saving faith,” says Anderson, “a person appropriates Christ crucified to himself, saying with the heart, I am verily persuaded

By Josh Meier Permanent state or Temporary circumstance? Someone once said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” The difference is thinking of poverty as an intrinsic quality versus thinking of it as a temporary circumstance. While that attitude may have

By Nate Stevens School Spirit I enjoyed spirit week at my high school, just like every other kid does across America. Our rival was Lawrenceville, a grotesque place just across the New Jersey state line, so we had more than the typical rival history between us. Their school colors were red and white, ours blue

By Randy White Somewhere in the past 40 years “Purpose” has become our god. I suppose Rick Warren revealed this god more than he invented it in his wildly successful book, The Purpose Driven Life. Somewhere, having Purpose (yes, I’m capitalizing it on purpose, since it has taken on a god-like status) became a “must